No abstract

In this paper, we introduce our special issue, “Internationalization for an Uncertain Future: Emerging Conversations in Critical Internationalization Studies.” In addition to reviewing the individual contributions to this issue, we also consider emerging areas of inquiry in the field of critical internationalization studies (CIS), and invite consideration of how the field might responsibly confront the challenges, complexities, and possibilities that emerge in efforts to imagine and practice internationalization otherwise in today’s complex, uncertain, and unequal world.

After the Second World War, Canadian parliamentarians showed growing interest in international students coming to Canada. The students became the subject of policy talk, which was shaped by powerful discourses emerging from the larger historical context. From 1945 to 1969, international students were seen as worthy recipients of Canadian aid, an idea that was premised on the belief that they were temporary visitors to Canada who would return to their home countries with both the skills they learned in Canadian schools and with an overall good- will towards Canada, a valuable commodity in the Cold War context. But after the Sir George Williams University affair of 1969, parliamentarians’ tone changed, and international student policy talk became suffused with discourses of fear and danger. In the years after 1969, international students were imagined as both politically and economically dangerous, an attitude that emerged as a reaction to student protest, but also re ected worries among some policymakers that Canada’s changing immigration system, and its move away from primarily Europeans sources for immigrants, was a threat to the stability of Canadian culture.RésuméAprès la Seconde Guerre mondiale, les parlementaires canadiens ont montré un intérêt crois- sant pour la venue au pays d’étudiants internationaux. Ces derniers devinrent un sujet de discussions politiques qui donna lieu à des discours émouvants alimentés par un vaste contexte historique. De 1945 à 1969, les étudiants internationaux étaient vus comme des récipiendaires dignes de l’aide canadienne. Cette idée s’appuyait sur l’impression qu’ils étaient des résidents temporaires au Canada et qu’ils retourneraient dans leur pays non seulement avec les com- pétences acquises dans les établissements d’enseignement, mais qu’ils af cheraient aussi leur bienveillance envers le Canada, une valeur inestimable dans un contexte de Guerre froide. Cependant, après l’affaire de l’Université Sir George Williams, en 1969, le ton des parlemen- taires canadiens a changé. Les discussions politiques sur les étudiants internationaux furent teintées par des idées de peur et d’appréhension. Après 1969, on imagina les étudiants inter- nationaux comme dangereux sur les plans politique et économique. Cette attitude fut une réaction aux protestations étudiantes, mais re était également les préoccupations de certains politiciens face aux changements du système d’immigration qui ne privilégiait plus les étu- diants venus d’Europe, ce qui présentait une menace à la culture canadienne.

This article offers a periodization of the history of international student policy in Canada since 1970. It draws on archival sources at seven public post-secondary institutions in British Columbia and Ontario, as well as governmental discussion in both provinces and at the Federal level, and scholarly writing about international students within the Canadian Journal of Higher Education to construct this history. Four key periods are identified: the emergence of differential fee policies in the 1970s; an era of institutional recruitment efforts in the 1980s and 1990s; a period of active government recruitment in the 2000s; and an era of bifurcating priorities as governments expanded their recruitment efforts but scholars began to question the international student project in Canada. The article shows changes in international student policy over the past half-century, but also reveals continuities, most notably a sustained emphasis on serving Canada’s perceived national interests.

Although there is a rich critical literature examining international student policy in Canada, very little of it considers the views of Members of Parliament. MPs have limited direct influence over international student policy, but their policy talk about international students defines the context within which such policy is developed. For that reason Parliamentary debate deserves study. This paper examines MPs’ discussion of international students between 1984 and 2019, tracing themes in MP policy talk over the globalization era. It finds that MPs evince remarkably consistent attitudes towards international students. Throughout the period MP policy talk shows that Parliamentarians saw international students as outsiders who were only ofvalue to the extent that they could be made to serve Canada’s economic or political agenda. The uniformity of this attitude and the lack of dissenting voices suggest that MPs’ views may be a significant barrier to reforming international student policy in Canada.